Protagonist
by Rasielle
Summary: He's a murdering hero. And he doesn't quite know how to handle it. Harry, oneshot.


**Protagonist  
**_Rasielle _

-

_Harry, when you kill You-Know-Who, how d'you reckon you'd feel?_

When _I kill Voldemort?_

_Oh, c'mon, Harry. Everyone's expecting it._

He could taste blood in the air, blood and metal, and an overlay of salt. Death, everywhere. Flashes of light flew around him, spells being cast; war raged. It was as though time were rushing and speeding around him, past him. No matter. The fighting went on, and on, and on. But Harry's part was done.

_Why are you asking me this?_

_I was just wondering… if killing You-Know-Who for the first time would feel any different from killing anyone else. I mean, I can't imagine actually 'Avada Kedavra'-ing anyone. Can you?_

_I… can't imagine it, Ron._

_Would it really be that bad?_

_I don't know._

Why is the war still commencing? Harry wondered. The whole point of it – the source – it was gone. Amazing, it was, that no Death Eaters realized that Voldemort was on the ground, as limp as a rag-doll, broken and beaten and yet unmarked. It didn't look real. It looked… like an illusion. A hallucination. Hell, maybe that's what it was.

_Reckon you'd laugh, Harry?_

_Laugh? Ron, how can you laugh after killing someone?_

_This isn't just someone; it's You-Know-Who. Just think about it – he's killed tons of people, and a handful of them were people you actually cared about. What do you think it'd be like finally getting revenge?_

_But…_

_I'd laugh, Harry._

And Harry thought of Sirius. Of Dumbledore. Of his mother, his father – of Florean Fortescue, Amelia Bones, Bertha Jorkins, the Order, Alice and Frank Longbottom, and the dead Arthur Weasley. Of Ron. Would he laugh?

_I…I wouldn't laugh, Ron. But I don't think I'd grieve at destroying the modern world's greatest plague, either._

It was so easy, Harry thought back. The moment he had spotted Voldemort, a tall and spectral figure gliding through the fighting mass with evident ease… it had become so easy. All he had to do was raise his wand, and wait as something inside of him rose – a sort of power, a combination of the hatred Dumbledore had explained to him so long ago and the love he had for the dead that he knew. He remembered what was said about the Unforgivable Curses – you had to _mean_ them. And Harry did – during that frozen moment in time and space, he thought he was going to burst if he did not do it. He thought flames would come up from beneath him, swallow him up if he did not say the words. Mean the words.

He didn't even realize he had raised his wand and yelled them; he hardly figured that it was his voice at all. Nearly tempted enough, he was, to turn and see if an Auror behind had cast it instead. But no Auror did. Harry was no Auror.

Very familiar, that green blinding light. It seemed more evil than Voldemort ever could become. It devoured the scene, blasted through the wand like a Slytherin sunburst. Lime-green, too. Such a curious color.

Then Voldemort changed. The way his eyes widened, the way fear softened him… he almost looked _human._

But it was easy.

Even when he was partially human. It was still so easy, too easy, too haunting. The pain he could read in Voldemort's barely-human eyes seemed to satisfy a long hunger in Harry, somehow. He almost liked it.

And then everything began to solidify.

So there it was: the very constant truth. It was indeed different killing Voldemort. Voldemort was a demon of some sort, an Evil Incarnate… it would be a sin _not_ to kill him. To kill him would mean vengeance, and wasn't that what Harry was searching for all the while?

But was vengeance a real reason to kill?

Harry couldn't laugh. It was quite the contrary, actually. No matter how long he thought about Dumbledore… Sirius… Cedric… his mother and father… Mr. Weasley… no matter how long he dwelled on their happier days and then their not-so-happy last moments, he began to realize that there was something about killing Voldemort that butchered him a little inside, too. It was using one evil to rid another.

Was this what saving the world was supposed to feel like?

As Harry fell to his knees, his thoughts began to spill. The corners of his eyes fogged up – not with tears – as he looked again at Voldemort, the long, thin, white figure whose face was contorted with surprise, fear, and more than a hint of despair.

_Grieve for You-Know-Who, Harry? Haha, that's funny. You grieve for dead friends, mate, not for dead Dark wizards_.

_Yeah, Ron. I know._ But somehow, the words couldn't change a thing.

- _fin._


End file.
